A deflector shield has just gone up around Simon Pegg. The baby-faced British actor has written and acted in the offbeat comedies “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” and is in town to talk about his newest starring role in “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.”

Ed Symkus

A deflector shield has just gone up around Simon Pegg. The baby-faced British actor has written and acted in the offbeat comedies “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” and is in town to talk about his newest starring role in “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.”

But, despite a warning from his publicist not to bring up his role as Montgomery Scott — better known as Scotty — in the upcoming J.J. Abrams film “Star Trek,” I choose to mention it, wondering why that rule was put in place.

“Actually, I’m not supposed to talk about it,” says Pegg. “I genuinely do think it’s going to be amazing, from the scenes I’ve seen. But because they’re being very protective of the plot, we can’t really talk about it.”

But he’s kind of laughing about the metaphorical tape on his mouth, so I give it a try. I ask him if he plays the part the way James Doohan did on the original show.

“When James got the character breakdown and they told him who Scotty was, that’s the same as what I got,” he says calmly.

“Do you have a Scottish accent in the film?

“Yes, and my wife is Scottish.”

“Do you beam anyone up?”

Oops. Here comes that deflector shield.

“I can’t tell you.”

But I push on.

“Is the word ‘beam’ in the movie?”

“I can’t say.”

No doubt, it’s time to switch to the movie at hand — a comedy in which he plays a celebrity correspondent in London who can’t stand celebrities, and writes snarky pieces about them. But when he’s invited to New York to write for a glitzy celebrity magazine, he must feign interest in the movie stars he’s sent to interview.

Pegg claims that he’s never had any run-ins with people like Sidney, the rude character he plays.

“I’ve been very lucky,” he says. “Occasionally in the UK, perhaps, you come into contact with younger guys that try to be funny, and ask you silly questions. But I think journalists like Sidney are pretty rare. There are people like that. But I think to suggest that he is representative of the journalistic community at large would be ridiculous.”

Yet Sidney is, at the same time, a sympathetic character. Kudos to Pegg for pulling that off.

“The challenge is to bring someone as objectionable as that, and make them actually likeable,” he says. “You look at characters, in the British comedy tradition, such as Basil Fawlty [John Cleese in “Fawlty Towers”] or David Brent [Ricky Gervais in “The Office”]. They’re guys that continually disappoint you. But you come back and go, ‘Pleeease, just get it right.’ ”

But Pegg admits to facing other, very different types of challenges on the set of “How to Lose Friends.” He’d be working opposite acting legend Jeff Bridges, and doing love scenes with the almost frighteningly beautiful Megan Fox (“Transformers”).

“I’m a huge fan of Jeff,” gushes Pegg. “The notion of actually performing with him was terrifying, and exciting, at the same time. Before I met him, I was thinking, ‘I’m gonna be doing scenes with the Dude’ [a reference to Bridges’ iconic role in “The Big Lebowski”]. He’s cool and good-looking and a star, but he’s also a very, very good actor. So approaching those scenes, I was nervous, but as soon as the camera rolled, it was like butter. It was so easy, because acting with someone who’s as generous and capable as him just brings out the best in you.”

Getting up close and personal with Fox was a different story.

“When she first walked on set, there was a palpable sense of amazement,” he recalls. “She is so beautiful. But she’s also so not what you’d expect. She’s just a surf chick from California. She likes her comic books and she’s kind of goofy and she giggles. And she was a big fan a ‘Shaun of the Dead.’

“Funnily enough, the first thing Megan said to me was that I was old enough to be her dad,” he adds, laughing. “That was a kind of joke we had between us. But like any man is in the face of extraordinary beauty, you kind of bow to it slightly. And I get to be caught in a love triangle between Megan and Kirsten Dunst in the film. It’s like, if you’re gonna suspend your disbelief at any point, well, there you go.”

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